Rolling railway-baks



UNITED STATES PATENT OEEIOE.

JOHN W. BROWN, OF SAVAGE IRON WORKS, ALLEGANY COUNTY, MARYLAND.

ROLLING RAILWAY-BARS.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 14,552, dated April 1, 1856.

To all whom t may concern Be it known that I, JOHN W. BROWN, of Mount Savage Iron Works, in the county of Allegany and State of Maryland, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Machinery for Rolling T-Iron Rails for Railroad and other Uses; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specification, in whichf Figure 1, is a front elevation of a rolling mill for carrying out my invention. Fig. 2, is a diagram representing sections of the groove 4, and illustrating the operation of my improvement. Fig. 3, is a diagram illustrating the change of fo-rm which the bar undergoes in passing through the groove, 3, of the roller.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in the several figures.

This improvement has for its object the rolling of t-he bars into such forms successively, as to cause all parts of the rail to be submitted in the rolling process to as nearly as possible a uniform degree of drawing and compression, thereby preventing the separation of the head and flange, or any part being drawn sufliciently to break the other parts in pieces, and making all parts of the rail of equal density. The improvement enables rails to be made perfectly sound with crystalline iron in the heads, which is far superior to fibrous iro-n, as the latter laminates or peels off.

In the rollers, A, B, of the rolling mill represented, are five grooves, numbered respectively in Fig. 1, from l to 5, in the order of succession in which they receive the bar to roll it, the bar being taken from the roughing or billeting rollers and passed through groove, l, and afterward through 2, 3, 4 and 5, the latter of which finishes it.

The improvement consists in the form of the groove, 3, by which a depression or cavity is formed all along the center of the base of the rail, after the reduction to form the head has been to a certain extent effected by the grooves l and 2, but before the further reduction to form the neck is commenced; so that by the subsequent operation of the groove, 4, which reduces the middle of t-he bar to form the neck, and brings it nearly to the proper shape, the metal is easily displaced from the middle and the latter in red; the depression or i cavity in the base produced in the groove, 3, being indicated by the letter, a. The effect which the previous formation of the depression or cavity, a, has in the rolling of the bar in the groove, 4, is illustrated in Fig. 2, where the three pairs of circles, c, CZ, represent severally those parts of the groove, 4, of the roller which respectively roll the flanges of the base, the neck, and the head. C, in the same ligure, represents that portion of the bar which has not yet entered the groove, 4; and D, that portion which has passed through the said groove; the lines, e, e, represent the base of the rail; those y, f, the head; and the dotted lines,-g, g, the neck. In this figure it is shown that the largest parts, d, d, oi the rollers come int-o action on the bar as the latterarrives at t-he position of the red line, z., but the parts, 5, do not come into operation till the bar arrives at the position of the red line, i, and the parts, c, c, not till the bar has reached the position of the red line, j, by which means the iron is forced by the parts, d, cl, from the middle of the bar toward the collar, k, of the roller, B, against which the base of the rail is formed, (see Fig. 2), before any of the parts that roll the head and flanges come into action. The middle of the bar is in this way reduced to two-thirds of the thickness it was at the time of entering the rollers, before the flanges are operated upon, and by the time the operation on the head of the rail commences, it is reduced nearly to the proper thickness for the neck of the rail, and the depression or cavity in the base is quite filled up, and the several parts of the rollers being properly proportioned, there will be no more thickness left in the middle of the bar to extend it lengthwise than there is in the base and head; and consequently all parts of the rail will be drawn or extended lengthwise in a like degree and be form the base of the rail, previously to the reduction of the bar to form the neck; said cavity to be filled up by the displacement of the iron from the middle of the rail by the subsequent rolling operation, substantially as set forth for the purpose herein described.

' JOHN W. BROWN. Witnesses SAMUEL DANKs, JAMES WHITEHEAD. 

